Extension settings changed programatically don't show in UI

[sebastian-correa]

Problem

I am trying to implement a reset to default "button" as a select preference. The entry in manifest.json looks like this:

{
      "id": "reset_to_default",
      "type": "select",
      "name": "Reset preferences to default",
      "default_value": "-",
      "options": [
        {
          "value": "-",
          "text": "-"
        },
        {
          "value": "Reset",
          "text": "Reset"
        }
      ]
}

And the PreferencesUpdateListener looks like this:

DEFAULT_PREFERENCES = {"kw": "rae", "max_suggested_items": 10, "max_shown_definitions": 10, "reset_to_default": "-"}
class PreferencesUpdateListener(EventListener):
    def on_event(self, event, extension):
        if event.id == "reset_to_default" and event.new_value == 'Reset':
            for id_, val in DEFAULT_PREFERENCES.items():
                extension.preferences[id_] = val

When I toggle the Reset button to reset and save, the extension's behaviour changes but the UI doesn't reflect that.

Source can be found here.

Steps to reproduce

1. Define PreferencesUpdateListener with an on_event method that updates a preference with a predefined value.
2. Before changing values in the UI, test extension to verify it complies with the behaviour reflected in the UI.
3. Trigger the on_event method (in my case, by toggling a button in the preferences menu).
4. Verify the extension now behaves as expected, but that the UI shows the old values.

See attached video for illustration.

Current behavior

PreferencesUpdateListener resets the extension.preferences property to its default value and the behaviour changes accordingly. That is, when I use the extension, the new set values are in effect.

However, the extensions settings UI shows the old values.

Expected behavior

When I change the extension.preferences property in a PreferencesUpdateListener, both the behaviour and the values in the settings UI should reflect these new values.

Environment

Ulauncher version: 5.11.0
Linux distro: Pop_OS! 20.10
Desktop environment: Gnome 3.38.3

Logs

Not sure whether they add much information, but here they are. They correspond to the process shown in the video.

Closing remarks

This might not be a bug. I suspect I have to tell the extension to update the UI once the values are set in the code. I did not find a way to do this, and this template suits the issue the best. Feel free to change the tags.

Thanks!

[friday]

We don't really support this. The users should be in control of the user settings. It seems like you found a way to override that. If we directly supported a "Reset" function like your is would be different, but I'm not sure we want to do that.

[sebastian-correa]

Hey, thanks for your patience!! Busy end/start of year for me.

Fair enough. My intent was to have a safety for a user that breaks something. If they did, they could just revert the settings to the default.

Maybe having the default_value key auto show up in the settings would be a nice middle ground, where I don't have to remember to include it (and change it if the default changes for some reason) in the description key but wouldn't signify a big change in functionality from your side. It would also help to cohesion, because currently different extensions could show a field's default values in different ways.

Options that come to mind are:

1. A line below the description.
2. Right next to the name.
3. As (phantom) text to the right inside the box with the option.

Cheers!!